The Companions Handbook
by emptysummer
Summary: This is what you'll learn from the Doctor.
1. it goes like this

The Companions Handbook

Doctor Who. This is what you'll learn from the Doctor. Doctor+Companions.

Fic a day 4

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><p>It goes something like this.<p>

A man, a hand and _run_ (help me, what are you doing here, I can give you a ride home, just one trip). _Run_. He'll offer all you all of time and all of space. All the stars that ever were and ever will be. A fool would say no. _A greater fool would say yes._ It's not a choice. Not really. He'll hold out his hand and offer you the stars and _this isn't a choice. _

You leave them behind, friends, lovers, family for a chance to see the stars. Nobody could fault you for that. (They can and will. All of time and space and you didn't even say goodbye.) Simple things. Domestics. Not for the Doctor.

He's alien and strange and this bit, _It's bigger on the inside!_, is his favorite. He talks too fast and makes you want to pull your hair out, and scream. He's condescending (apes) and cruel (there is always a choice) and sometimes when you're running you can feel the thr-thrum of two hearts through his hand (clasped in yours). You won't understand half the things he spits out like a toddler hyped on sugar, and the half you do understand is enough to make your heart sink.

There will be obscene amounts of running. Invest in trainers and keep paracetamol in the cupboard in the bathroom that will spring up next to your room (never aspirin). You'll nearly die at least once a week but he'll never leave you behind, never not come for you. _Companions believe in the Doctor because the Doctor believes in companions._ It's not paradox. You'll learn to recognize those damn fast.

You'll see every corner of the galaxy and see magnificent, brilliant, fantastic things.

You'll see worlds end and every ugly, cruel, disgusting thing sentient life has ever created.

Most of the time it's worth it. You'll have days where_ everybody lives._ Days where the galaxy keeps spinning and _nobody dies__. _

Sometimes it's not. Most days people die and ships crash and civilizations burn. You'll realize how old he is, ancient and lonely and you'll realize this is the price for living forever. People die and everything ends and this is how the universe works and it hurts. Those days you'll long for the telly and chips. Safe comfortable little lives in a small home, unaware of the galaxy.

So small, disgustingly human. His contempt rubs off onto you.

When it gets really bad, you'll ask to go home. Just for an afternoon. A quick pop-by to grab something you forgot. To remember what you forgot, _humanity_ is such a big word.

You'll go home and you won't fit anymore. Too big for your skin in the neat houses of your hometown. You've seen worlds end, and people die. Too big for the flat that used to be yours. Maybe you hesitated at the door. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you marched in like this was still your life and you hadn't been gone for months.

Maybe you hesitated at the door and realized this wasn't you anymore and walked away before you could break their (on the other side of the door they're waiting. You didn't even say goodbye) hearts again.

It would have hurt less.

_You can go home again._ But you can't pretend to be what you were.

He'll give you a TARDIS key then. Not before. And you'll run, run, run. You and him you'll never stop. He'll hold your hand and you'll promise him forever, '_til the end of me,_ you should say. He'll still be burning, a comet 'cross the sky, long after you're dust.

You'll love him. Somewhere between run and the promised forever, you'll look to him and his hand wrapped around yours (as if he's trying to prove you're real and he isn't alone). Love is a smile and the feel of your heart after you just nearly died, again. He'll love you too, brilliant girl, because you are unforgivably human.

The Doctor is gravity and you're falling.

The Doctor is a black hole and he'll recreate you in his image and you won't even notice too enamored of the stars.

The Doctor is forever and every possibility of what you could have been and with him you'll be _fantastic. _He makes you fantastic.

It'll be brilliant you and him.

Eventually though it ends. People die and everything ends. He taught you that but you thought you had more time. Never enough time for a human, years gone in a blink to him.

You leave, die, trapped in time, stuck in a parallel universe, burned up. You're gone and he's alone again. Someday you'll make a choice about how forever wasn't what you meant and you'll break his hearts. Companions always do.

He'll burn up a sun to say goodbye but he won't bring you back. Humans wither and die and he was always too kind.

So he'll run (run run run) until he finds another hand that fits into his and another child with a heart too big for their body. He'll show them the stars and make them fantastic.

It goes something like this.

A man, a hand and _run._

You'll learn:_ people die and everything ends. _There is no going back_._


	2. capacity

The Companions Handbook

Companions have a certain capacity.

Fic a day 10

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><p><em>Companions obey.<br>_Not the little things, don't follow me, don't wander off, don't try that. The big things, take my hand, run, don't die. Fifteen minutes left 'til the world ends and you, companion, you're needed. Obey, in the tone of his voice, underwritten in the Doctor's commands. How many worlds, peoples did you save? How many did you kill? You were only following orders.

You'll scream and rage when he tries to send you away. Because he needs someone to stop him. This is your purpose. _To stop him._ You'll follow TARDIS blue invitations to his death, playing the elaborate games in between. You'll bring tea to the console without commands, grab his hand when he goes too long without babbling. You're not allowed to lose your temper, because he needs you almost as much as he needs the TARDIS, he needs someone to applaud him just as he needs someone to stop him. He doesn't need to say love me. You'll do that without orders.

_Companions hold his hand.  
><em>You learn that this is love: palms together, fingers interlocked, pressure and the twin beat of two hearts, counterpoint to your human heart.

_Companions believe in the Doctor.  
><em>Faith isn't blind for you. There is a single real force that will save you every time. Sometimes those threatening you even survive the encounter. There is nothing to stop him from harming your captors (and they just made the single greatest mistake of their life, taking you). The Doctors sanity is not overwhelming and without you- _fear me__. I am become death, destroyer of worlds. _The Oncoming Storm is rushing in. He's not a Lonely God with you, but without? Laugh.

It unnerves your captors.

_Companions aren't soldiers_.  
>Not yet. That comes later. After the Doctor, if there is an after. He gives them the prototype for a soldier, the experiences, the reflexes (jump when he says jump), run run run. Former companions have their choice of military jobs. (Did you know that Doctor? Most militaries would kill for a companion on the payroll. He didn't of course because he doesn't keep in touch.) No guns for them yet but they have him still. It's later when the world is ending and he is gone, that they bear arms. They have to live with the consequences now, no more swanning off with a madman in a blue box, and a gun is the easier choice. The unforgivable choice. He made you soldiers and this is you, soldiering on.<p>

Forgive us Doctor for we have sinned. We made the choice to live with the consequences, without you.

_Companions will not be forgotten (nor forgiven).  
><em>Your room is still on the TARDIS. Did you know that? Of course not. The end of you and him was definite. No going back. But its there, tucked behind the other rooms of past companions. It's there and untouched, collapsed as needed during the various repairs he constantly runs to keep her afloat. Your room is there and pristine, just waiting for you to step back through the door. You've been immortalized in the heart of a time machine.

Funny how that doesn't feel like a compliment.

_Companions aren't allowed to promise forever, not anymore.  
><em>There will come a day when you'll look to the Doctor, across the TARDIS console, holding hands after a win and you'll promise him forever. You'll mean the rest of your life, forever in human years. You and him running for years ahead. You'll see it with perfect clarity then and know this is what should be. What will be. Do you even consider his feelings? What it would be like to watch you age and die in the heart of a time vortex? One day you'll be too frail to run, too weak to keep up. One day you'll wake aching and old, tired of being alone, knowing that this is what you want (wanted). You'll resent his youth because he won't have changed at all, and you're old now.

Better for things to end this way, abruptly, definitively. The end of an era. He measures his time by companions, eras he defines himself by your names and the things you saw, running together. In terms of the years they give him and their beginnings and ends. Time rises and falls with the years of a companion.

_Companions leave.  
><em>You'll break his hearts in the end, both of them, no matter how your particular story ends.

_Companions cannot become_.  
>Companions have a certain capacity. Each and every one of them, they have a niche in their chests where a second heart would fit so neatly. Proto-Time Lords and Ladies. He knows what, when time wraps around itself after the end of the universe, resetting, they become. Companions cannot. He was meant to be alone, knows this in the glorious twists of time lines that he could never describe to you, such a uniquely Time Lord concept. Some of you came so close, grasping the entirety of time and space, feeling the turn of planets through space. It nearly killed them, would have <em>(should have is not the same as will, and impossible is merely a word)<em>, if he wasn't kind enough to let them go.

They could have been. Humans can adapt to anything as he has proven to you countless times. They could have been Time Lords. Could have been immortal, could have promised him forever and meant it.

And that is enough to break his hearts again.


End file.
